Kill Emil Gestaff:

The baker's wife has placed a contract on the head of her unfaithful husband

He can be found in the Silver Moon brothel in the town of Dune

Reward:

1 contract point

Eliminate the contact whilst he's in the building and paint the walls with his blood to increase the Syndicate's fame

Return with the target's head to unlock knowledge of the Baker class and to earn additional rewards

Light understands that this mission is important.

His master specifically instructed him so.

What he can't understand is why his master would allow a regular human to accompany him and Dropper.

What he finds even harder to grasp is why his master only gave him, his partner, and their human tag-along, two horses.

Two. Not three. Just two.

Currently, Sophie has her arms locked around Light's waist on the back of one horse whilst Dropper smiles happily at her partner's situation from the other.

'Is The Master trying to set me up with this human? Why would she do that? Although, I suppose she is quite beautiful or is that due to the exposure of being close to The Master. It's hard to tell. Either way, it's just... Strange. That's what it is! Strange,' he thinks, taking small peeks back at the woman holding tight behind him as they emerge from the woods onto the path heading toward Dune.

"Are you okay over there?" Dropper calls out with a hint of sarcasm on her voice.

"I'm fine! Why do you ask?" Light snaps back, assuming her words are meant for him as they so often are.

"Oh. I didn't mean 'you', Light. I'm sorry. I was talking to Sophie," Dropper laughs at her partner.

"Oh, now you wanna start cracking jokes. I remember when a certain someone had a certain young apprentice hanging from her waist. Wasn't so funny then was it?" trying to shame his partner in their battle of words, Dropper laughs it off.

"But right now, you are living the dream, are you not?" Looking at Sophie nestled into Light's back, Light sees her eyes drawn to the woman behind him and he realises that he must watch his words and endure the hard but soft grip for the sake of the mission. In all honesty, he doesn't actually mind the strangely infatuated woman, clutching him tightly as if he may disappear at any moment.

"Sophie, why do you cling to me the way you do?" Sophie raises her head from Light's back at his words and places it over his shoulder.

"You're strong. Like, really strong, right? Isn't that all any girl wants? A strong, handsome man," she pecks his cheek at the end of her words and he blushes brightly while looking towards Dropper for aid. Unfortunately, he finds no help as her mouth is wide open, she is almost more shocked than he is.

With no assistance being shown from his partner, Light gazes back at Sophie who has nestled back into the comfort of his back but finds he is lost for words.

"H-handsome?" he eventually stutters as Sophie raises her head back up. The rest of the ride there, she whispers sweet words, of the life they could have together, into his ear.

Light, Dropper, and Sophie, Syndicate Assassins

I'm not going to lie.

After being confined to the dungeon for so long, it's really strange watching five burly looking men tend to a field. The sweat that drips off their chiseled physique in the midday sun is enough to make a girl weak at the knees.

Pretty damn sweet, but strange nonetheless.

When I assigned the Shadow Farmers to the Field of Fertility, I had to choose one of them as the leader. In the process this granted him the title of High Cultivator and lost knowledge on how to efficiently sow, reap and keep the best harvests from any crop.

Humans would wage war for the techniques that the High Cultivator has been granted. After spending a full day planting and then infusing the earth with mana, the five farmers relaxed for the rest of the day. On the second day, the High Cultivator spent the morning speaking to the crops in the field and then left once again to relax. I was a bit confused at this process but I don't know squat about farming so I let him continue. To my surprise, by the evening the magical crops were almost ready for harvest. It took another full day for the High Cultivator to teach his four companions how to correctly cut down, remove, and then store, the bountiful resource he had blessed.

It was all a very strange process to me.

Wheeler and the male guard Aaron left my dungeon with a dozen Shadow Walkers as escort. It's safe to say that they were extremely pleased with their new bodyguards and travelling companions.

Wheeler set off with the goal of talking-up the new mountain town of Varona to the cities of the Ishda province. Once he has completed that task, he will return with anyone that wishes to relocate here before he heads out to a different area to repeat the process. I should consider myself lucky that he stumbled upon my land during their escape. All that it has cost to recruit his services was the promise of a large building where he can sell his wares tax-free once Varona is a bustling DP factory.

It's likely to be a few weeks before they return so in that time I'm aiming to improve the area outside my home.

The remaining guard Sophie decided to stay with Light and now follows him everywhere like a lost lamb. Currently, she is out with him and Dropper on a Syndicate mission, not that she knows it's for the Syndicate or even why they're travelling so far away. She hasn't been contracted to me so it was the best idea I could come up with to remove her from my dungeon while I make some changes.

The Academy of Dark Arts was stored on the fifth floor before Wheeler and Aaron left. It would have been even strange for them to be blocked inside the mountain by a brand new building. Especially considering its size and how soon it appeared shortly after their arrival.

It would have been almost as strange as watching Noir store the academy in his spacial storage before I had the chance to tell him that I could have stored it in my own dungeon inventory. He laughed it off with sweat dripping down his pale face before teleporting to the designated spot and unloading the large burden promptly.

Staying on the subject of strange, The Syndicate has managed to reach level 4. I don't need DP to level this building, making it the only one of its kind. Each level up requires double the amount of contracts as the last, which doesn't seem much different from anything else that goes on in my dungeon. For it to get to level 2, all that was required was the completion of one contract. Then, from level 2 to 3, it took two contracts. Then it was four contracts to reach level 4 and now it's eight to reach level 5.

Currently, this is the level of my strangeness.

The Syndicate:

Level 4

All associates' earn a 40% boost to all stats regardless of location

All associates' are able to use Dark Magic fluently even if they are unattuned to the dark element

All associates' physical skills inflict an extra 25% damage and all mental skills last 25% longer regardless of stats

Cloak of Night:

Turn invisible for 60 minutes once a day

Does not cost mana to cast

Does not require a physical skill to use

Once deactivated cannot be used again until the cool down period is over

Contracts until next level:

7

Contracts can be acquired from:

Taskmaster Talia

Gourmet Abi

Potion Master Lucinda

The Swindler Jack

It's ridiculous.

Especially when you consider the other home ground advantages that I have.

Where were these boosts when I was a human? And in reality, I don't even get them now! I can grant them to others who join my cause and anyone or anything that I create gets them automatically. I know it's great but I still feel like I'm missing out on the action.

So yeah, strange has been the name of the last few days.

Any way, with the aid of The Syndicate, and thanks to my diligent subjects completing their missions, I've managed to unlock a few different subclasses to aid me in the creation of Varona. I don't need help with the buildings, they appear from the awesomeness of nothing, what I need and what my city needs are people.

Hopefully, in the near future, Wheeler's convincing words will inspire people to travel to my city. If not I'm sure the Shadow Walkers that I sent with him will inspire a few curious people to venture our way.

Tired of being caught unaware by the various people that keep heading my way, I purchased two more plots of land and over the last few days I've been creating the foundations of a mountain town outside my dungeon town.

The Academy of Dark Arts now sits in front of the entrance to my true home, the unreasonably beautiful mountain. From the large gates, that are closed to all except students, I have paved the floor and filled the street with buildings that are all secondary to the ones I currently possess inside. For people to believe that we're a thriving upcoming town, buildings like a church, a tavern, restaurants and shops are needed for credibility and believability.

Fortunately for me, the secondary buildings are exact duplicates of their originals, unless I decide to alter them myself, and they only cost a fraction of the price. I don't even know when I unlocked the feature to duplicate but it has sure come in handy.

Also, with all the points that I can now hold, I put a lot of them into new housing for all my subjects. I know some of them are staying at the Privacy Palace and that won't do. They should all have their own homes with how hard they work. I almost bottomed out after I had finished creating more houses than was necessary.

I didn't realise how fast my body count was rising until I was actually making the homes for them.

I know how many there are but when I was actually creating the living spaces for each person, it added a certain clarity to the numerical figures.

Any way, the mountain town of Varona is starting to look good with the buildings that I've been able to duplicate and it looks quite busy. With my people swapping their indoor buildings for the outdoor ones, or whatever you class them as seeing as they're still in me, it has even helped bring Kat out of the mountain that she has been reluctant to leave.

With houses lining the street between the different establishments, I gave Kat the house next to Ali's restaurant. She seems to spend a lot of time with our culinary genius so it was a no brainer keeping them close.

My new town is not the only thing I've spent my DP on recently though. I decided to improve my farming teams by a considerable amount, but not with Shadow Walkers. The Archer class that I unlocked, which seems like a long time ago now, had sat there unused due to my own mistake of not making full use of everything that's available to me. As usual after I summoned ten Archers I unlocked the next stage of evolution, The Ranger. Ten Rangers later and I unlocked the ability to summon Wood Walkers.

I complained that the System seemed a bit cliché in her choice of names until Me reminded me that the names come from my mind. The System just takes and uses them.

I've gotta get better at this naming job. Maybe I should try and come up with them in advance. I'll keep a list.

Either way, the Wood Walkers are just as strong as the Shadow Walkers with only a few differences between their stats so I made a few dozen teams and sent them to Hana and Mira to be assigned shifts. The Archers and Hunters were mixed in with the Shadow Walker guard detail adding to our general defence.

To anyone that makes their way here, Varona now looks like an ordinary town that encompasses an anything but ordinary mountain. The next step out here will be further expansion, once some of my scouting parties return. I need to increase the amount of land I own so that I can accommodate more people.

I can only hope that the people I'm trying to accommodate for will actually show up one day.